Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1898 — Why Locomotives Are Numbered. [ARTICLE]

Why Locomotives Are Numbered.

A prominent railroad man saye that the old custom of naming engines instead of numbering them was done away with because there was such a pressure brought to bear in favor of this, that and the other locality. The| various influences used became so annoying to the officials that they decided! to adopt the plan of numbering the locomotives, which was done. A similar nuisance exists at Washington in the Navy Department Probably during the late war Secretary Long was pestered more with people who wanted vessels named in honor of somebody or something than he was with all thej other questions which came before him put together.